Forget About the SAE Racist Bus Chant Already? Forget it For the Right Reasons

A few weeks ago, you could not turn on your TV or scroll through your newsfeed without seeing reports of the University of Oklahoma’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon singing their racist chant.

Now? We’ve moved on to the next hot issue or whatever the news wants to push as the hot issue but let’s not think the real issue has been dealt with.

It hasn’t been.

Of course, this sparked more conversation of racial dynamics in America which is good because that’s how actions can be birthed, as long as passion and promise are able to get together to conceive. However, far too often our community remedies the wrong ills and takes half baked apologies as if that’s the cure. What Levi Pettit “apologized” for that day wasn’t even the sick problem.

The disease that society suffers from was contracted long before Levi and if we want to get to the correct diagnosis we can not act surprised that people are saying “nigger” behind closed doors, loudly. The problem is not that these kids were singing that song on that bus. The problem is that a person of color wasn’t on that bus, which is a direct effect of not having the same opportunities and privileges as those SAE members.

Now, Hiphop has always been about have-nots having. We took the disgusting actions of these former fraternity brothers and sisters and turned it around just by doing what we do best, turning a negative into a positive. They’ll never be a nigger SAE? That’s fine with me.

We have better things to do.

Hiphop has provided an avenue for creative energy to travel, and it has, literally all over the world. But it’s on you, the individual, to come for the ride… or you can just sit on a bus.